Ant Financial is continuing to make its presence felt outside of the Chinese market with the acquisition of Lazada’s payments arm HelloPay. The financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.
The South-East Asian payments processor will rebrand to Alipay Singapore, Alipay Malaysia, Alipay Indonesia and Alipay Philippines in its respective market.
The acquisition follows Alibaba, the e-commerce giant from which AliPay was spun out in 2014, purchased a $1bn controlling stake in Lazada last year.
HelloPay’s team will join Ant Financials’ Singapore office and continue to operate as previously, serving Lazada with its app remaining separate from AliPay.
Ant’s senior VP Douglas Feagin stated: “There will be no impact to helloPay’s users and payment partners. We will continue to innovate and provide users with safe, fast and convenient payment services.”
The move comes as a part of Ant Financial’s continued expansion beyond its 450 million Chinese uses.
The company also holds stakes in Filipino FinTech service Mynt and Indian payments firm Paytm.
It is also upping its offer for US money transfer service Moneygram to $1.2bn, as part of a looming bidding war with US payments service EuroNet.
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